The New York Times: The Family That Turned Malcolm X’s Life Into Opera

The New York Times
By Zachary Woolfe

“X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” which arrives at the Metropolitan Opera on Friday, was a family affair. The meditative yet dramatic work has a score by Anthony Davis to a scenario by his younger brother, Christopher Davis, and a libretto by their cousin Thulani Davis.

When they were working on the opera, in the early 1980s, the three were living in New York. Christopher appeared as Malcolm X in a play in Jamaica, Queens, and Anthony was playing experimental, improvised music in ensembles alongside Thulani’s poetry in productions downtown.

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ANTHONY DAVIS When we moved to New York, Thulani and I were part of this scene of music and poetry, what were called choreopoems; Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls” was the most famous. And Thulani and I worked with Ntozake and Jessica Hagedorn on “Where the Mississippi Meets the Amazon.” We ran at the Public Theater for several months.

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